Watch: Canterbury farmer shows trail of damage left by 'full-fledged tornado' on his property, including mangled machinery

November 19, 2018

Randal Hanrahan was working out in the field when the huge twister formed near him.

A Canterbury farmer has shown 1 NEWS the trail of damage left by a tornado on his property yesterday.

Randal Hanrahan was working out in the field when the huge twister, that was captured on video by many witnesses, formed near him.

"Around four o'clock I noticed a strong wind change and basically from that point forward I noticed a small disturbance in the crop of barley next to where I was working," Mr Hanrahan said.

"From there it moved across into a potato paddock and started gathering dust, getting bigger and bigger and taller and taller until it was a full-fledged tornado."

The farmer, whose property is located between Ashburton and Rakaia, near Fairton, was more worried about his family's safety than his own and quickly called them to make sure they were safe.

Thankfully, his family were visiting town at the time so were nowhere near the potentially deadly twister.

Mr Hanrahan said the tornado moved within 25 metres of his parent's house, but miraculously there was no damage to the property despite nearby trees being snapped in two.

The farmer wasn't so lucky himself, describing a trail of damage left by the tornado that knocked over five spans of irrigators, and a large tractor mower before moving over State Highway One.

Christchurch family's scary encounter

A Christchurch family of four filmed as the tornado travelled alongside their car on their way back home from a long weekend.

Richard and Alesha Plew said their two children, aged nine and six, were so scared they thought they were going to get sucked into the massive twister.

The family, who had just driven through 15 minutes of "ice cube"-sized hail in Ashburton, were talking about the damage to their car’s paintwork when they looked up and saw the twister a couple of fields away.

With Ms Plew filming, the pair said their children were "really scared".

But the couple said the tornado was not a threat to them.

"It was quite slow moving," Ms Plew explained. "We drove through the outer bits of it but it didn’t feel like it was pulling us up or anything - it wasn’t that strong."

Mr Plew added: "It was quite awe inspiring as it was quite huge."

"I said to the kids it was once-in-a-lifetime experience and they were fairly lucky to experience it."

The family, which had just spent the weekend in Ohau, said the hailstorm caused the most damage to their vehicle on their journey home.

SHARE ME

More Stories